Should News Orgs Attend DOJ Meeting?

The list of news outlets that won’t be attending a meeting organized by the Justice Department for Thursday is growing by the hour. Are they right to decline the invite?

After it was discovered in May that the DOJ secretly seized the phone records of Associated Press staffers in 2012, reporters cried foul, saying it was a moved that threatened the freedom of the press and closed ranks. In the heat of the scandal, DOJ said it would invite several national news outlets to a meeting to discuss revisions to its policies regarding government leaks to the media.

The problem: the meeting would have to be off the record, a deal-breaker for many news heads.

Among those who decided they wouldn’t attend, citing the off-the-record stipulation, include HuffPost, NYT, FNC, CNN, AP, CBS News and McClatchy. Those who have opted to attend include Politico and WaPo.

Media critic Howard Kurtz, who works for CNN, seems to disagree with those who are choosing to skip out. “Seems like the ‘cool’ media position now is to blow off Eric Holder, a departure from usual Beltway practice of wanting exclusive briefings,” he tweeted Thursday.

So, what’s the deal? Are news outlets right to boycott the meeting unless it’s on the record or are they being little drama queens? Vote in our Fish Poll:

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